Brief encounters

On the last day of the Premiership season, Newcastle's Laurent Robert did an impromptu striptease for supporters, joining an elite group of players who have bared all in the name of football. Martin Kelner wonders whether it's the start of a trend and what, if anything, it means

What does it all mean, and where is Dr Raj Persaud when you need him? I am sure there is some significance to the current craze for footballers displaying their underwear as part of a bonding ritual with their club's fans, but never having had the time to pursue any formal qualification in psychotherapy, I find myself unable to come up with a definitive explanation.

I always thought the act of exposing yourself below the waist in the vicinity of your own supporters was considered rather disrespectful, an adults-only version of thumbing your nose at them, only without the nose being directly involved.

Take, for instance, the behaviour of Sammy Nelson in front of the Arsenal fans in a match against Coventry in 1979. Nelson had been getting some fairly salty abuse from the Highbury faithful, so after scoring a rare goal, he dropped his shorts in front of them revealing his backside, and picked up a two-match ban from an outraged FA.

Clearly, Laurent Robert's strip at Newcastle yesterday and John Arne Riise's after Liverpool's Champions League triumph over Chelsea are of a different order. And let's not even start on the mass denudation by their own supporters of the Roma team upon winning the Italian chanpionship in 2001.

As any semiologist will tell you, the directing of the bare posterior at fellow humans is some kind of an atavistic warrior-like thing whereas the joyous and celebratory removal of clothing before other humans is, er, not. But in this modern age of constant media exposure (if you get my drift) actions acquire new meanings. Or at least I think they do. So here, for what it's worth, is my theory.

There was a time when footballers had no trouble connecting with their public. They were actually part of the public. I once sat opposite Alec Stepney when he was United and England goalie, on an ordinary train from Manchester to Stockport, travelling second class. A friend of mine tells me he saw Arsenal's Frank McLintock in a hardware shop buying self-tapping screws in 1968. That was the kind of thing footballers used to do.

Now those days are gone and footballers inhabit a different universe from the people who pay their wages, more extravagant demonstrations are required if we are to accept them as one of us.

Riise said as much, claiming his removal of clothing after the Chelsea game, far from being a spontaneous exhibition of joy and abandonment, was rather in the nature of a gift to the fans: "I just kept giving the fans everything I had on," said the Norwegian midfielder, "They kept yelling for more and I threw everything I could."

Interestingly, the pants thus revealed are of a style known as tanga briefs, much favoured by French and Italian players, and now apparently the Premiership's choice under the shorts, the Hummer of undergarments.

Similar smalls were sported by Robert, who one has to say - with all the usual qualifications and all rights reserved and so on - does look rather splendid in them. His display certainly seems to have done the trick with the famously macho Geordies, though, redeeming the Frenchman in their eyes despite his four years of whinging about his lot at Newcastle, the state of English football, and allied matters that have turned out not to be entirely as advertised.

So the conclusion is clear. No hidden messages. Football fans respond positively to the half-naked male form. There is only one thing for it. Get your kit off, Malcolm Glazer.